


Paws!

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Animal Transformation, Crack, Episode Tag, Fic, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2010-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's attention was on the kitten. It was small and black, with white whiskers, white paws and a small white bib on its chest. Its wide blue eyes were fixed on Peter. And it was wearing a collar with a blinking green light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paws!

**Author's Note:**

> SHAMELESS CRACK, FLUFF, HAI! Millions of thanks to Sage for beta, and mergatrude for title. &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3

Peter's phone rang at 7.34am, just as he was getting out of the shower. He slung a towel around his waist, dashed to the bedroom and lunged for the phone on its fourth ring. "This is Burke."

There was no reply. The only things Peter could hear were the hum of the phone line, a soft animal cry, and the more immediate sound of water dripping on the carpet at his feet. He checked the incoming number. It was Neal's cell.

"Neal?"

That cry again. Nothing else, not even muffled voices.

"Caffrey, what are you playing at?"

Same response.

Peter huffed, hung up and reached for his pants. "This better not be a prank," he muttered to himself, and hurried downstairs, car keys already in his hand.

 

*

 

When Peter pushed through the door to June's rooftop patio, there was no sign of Neal. Usually he was lounging around like a millionaire, drinking expensive coffee and perusing the paper, but today the place was deserted. Peter went over to the French doors and knocked.

Haversham answered, opening the door a crack so he could slip out, and shutting it behind him. "Agent Suit," he said. "Neal's not here."

He was obviously lying, but Peter played along. "So where is he? Work isn't an optional extra for him, you know. He doesn't get vacation days."

"Yes, yes, I understand he's your indentured servant, but unfortunately he's—sick." Haversham looked pleased, and added, "In the hospital... in quarantine!"

There was a crash from inside Neal's room, and Peter and Haversham both looked around. Peter couldn't see anyone, but crashes didn't just happen on their own.

"Saint June's Hospital?" he asked drily, and pushed past Haversham's protests and into Neal's apartment. "Neal?"

The place was empty and peaceful, no sign of a disturbance except for a broken water glass on the floor next to the table. And then a small black thing launched itself at Peter's head.

"Gah!" he shouted, swiping it aside. It landed on the floor and skittered under the couch. "What the hell was that?!" He rounded on Haversham and dug out his phone at the same time. "Where's Neal? Don't make me call the US Marshals."

Haversham held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. You'd better sit down." He knelt by the couch and peered under it, making coaxing noises, but the black thing scampered out from the back of the couch and flew onto Peter's lap, bounced onto the table and knocked over a salt shaker as it skidded to a halt.

"A kitten?" said Peter, dumbstruck. "Neal got himself a _kitten_? What about June's dog?"

"June is remarkably accommodating. You know, I'm actually starting to wonder if Neal is taking—" Haversham started, but Peter tuned him out, his attention on the kitten. It was small and black, with white whiskers, white paws and a small white bib on its chest. Its wide blue eyes were fixed on Peter. And it was wearing a collar with a blinking green light, that—

Wait a minute. "Come here," Peter told the kitten.

It raised its chin and stepped forward cautiously. Peter stayed perfectly still until it was well within reach and then grabbed it and picked it up so he could examine the collar. The kitten mewled—the same cry Peter had heard on the phone.

Peter's heart skipped a nervous beat, but he focused on the collar for starters, and yeah, it was the tracker all right. Still gray and allegedly tamperproof, but mysteriously smaller, its plastic GPS about an eighth of normal size and, well, a collar. On a kitten.

Peter hit three on his speed dial. The Electronic Monitoring Compliance Unit answered in two rings. "This is Burke, FBI. I need the location of detention tracking anklet 93-05 Alpha, Neal Caffrey."

The kitten squirmed free and went to sit by the overturned salt shaker, where it began diligently washing its little white paws.

"One moment please." There was the sound of typing, then the woman came back on the line. "Agent Burke, we have him located at 87 Riverside Drive."

"Thanks." Peter frowned, hung up and looked at Haversham. "Tell me exactly what's going on. Is Neal in trouble? If you tell me, I can help him."

"You won't believe me," said Haversham, looking worried and superior at the same time.

"You're probably right." Peter got up and checked the bathroom, the closet and under the bed for himself. He went outside and did a thorough sweep of the patio and was about to start in on the rest of the house when Haversham grabbed his arm and dragged him back inside.

"How did you hack the tracker?" Peter demanded, but Haversham just rolled his eyes and poured him a cup of coffee.

"You'll need this." Haversham sat down across from him. "Neal turned into a kitten. This kitten."

Even though Peter had been half-expecting something outlandish, it still knocked him back. "You're crazy! Don't you think I'm a little too old for fairytales?"

"You would be if it wasn't true." Haversham sighed. "Look, Kate asked Neal for the location of his stash—"

"Neal talked to Kate?" Peter asked, diverted.

"By phone, at Grand Central Station yesterday," Haversham said, as if Peter were stupid. "She wanted to know where Neal's stuff was, but he wouldn't tell her. So she turned him into a kitten."

"At Grand Central Station?" Peter shook his head, but he was watching the kitten. It was playing with the salt shaker now, batting it around so that white grains spilled across the table top. "I think someone might have noticed if a grown man turned into a kitten at Grand Central Station."

"She put a hex on him," said Haversham patiently. "He went to sleep as a man and woke up—like that." He pointed at the kitten.

"A hex," repeated Peter.

"She's a witch," said Haversham, adding bitterly, "Neal didn't believe me either."

"And now he's—" Peter took a mouthful of coffee. "This is ridiculous. Why a kitten?"

"Kate doesn't like cats," said Haversham, as if that were obvious. "And it may be ridiculous, but it's still true. How else do you explain the tracker? It's supposed to be an unwieldy plastic fetter on a human ankle. And now it's—"

"It could be a forgery," said Peter. "Neal could be hiding somewhere, and that collar could be a decoy. This whole thing could be a scam, a joke. In fact, it has to be. People do not turn into animals!"

"Maybe not in your corporate-sponsored industrially exploitative world," Haversham agreed. "But for the rest of us, things aren't always so black and white."

The kitten—which was definitely not Neal—chose that moment to meow, and they both looked at it. It was sitting up watching them, its tail twitching. For a second, Peter thought it was actually raising its eyebrows at him. It meowed again, and then started walking in circles around the salt shaker and the spilled salt, picking its way delicately through the stray grains.

Peter didn't believe for a second that the kitten was really Neal, but there was definitely something going on. He drained his coffee cup, stood up and then froze.

"What?" Haversham looked from Peter to the kitten and back again. "What?"

"The salt," said Peter. The kitten had spilled enough salt that it covered a portion of the table top entirely, and in the salt, it had marked out two letters: NC.

"No way," said Peter.

"I told you," said Haversham.

"I—" Peter sat down again.

The kitten came over, sat directly in front of him and purred.

 

*

 

"El?" Peter ignored the feline complaints from the large hat box under his arm, waved Haversham inside and shut the door behind him. "Do you know where Neal is? Is he here?"

"Isn't he with you?" called El from the dining room. "Is something wrong?"

"You could say that." Peter carried the box through and put it on the table next to El's laptop. "I need you to keep an eye on that." He went back to Haversham, still in the entranceway, fished out his phone and called the Monitoring Unit again. They said Neal was at Peter's address.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I just checked." It was the same woman he'd talked to earlier, only she sounded less cheerily helpful now.

Peter hung up and stared at the floor. It was true. Neal was a kitten. Magic was real. All Peter's certainties were cast into doubt. The world might as well have been made out of gingerbread and candy. How could he possibly hope to predict and catch criminals when he didn't understand the basic principles of reality? And more immediately, how could he hope to rescue Neal from his predicament?

Peter met Haversham's pitying gaze. "Okay, I give up. Say you're right—how do we fix it?"

"Of course I'm right." He was wearing Neal's hat. It made Peter itch to do something, anything, to set things to rights, but Haversham looked him up and down and said, "It's probably better if you stay here and keep an eye on him. I'll go and find someone who can conjure up an antidote."

Peter sighed. It went against the grain to leave something this important with someone he didn't trust, but what choice did he have? He didn't know anything about magic. "Okay, you do that."

Haversham didn't move, just looked up at him expectantly.

Peter glared. "What do you need?"

"Five hundred dollars," said Haversham. "And it'll go faster if I have a car."

"Honey?" called El from the dining room. "What's going on?"

"Fine," said Peter, feeling his glare turn into a scowl. He handed over his car keys with vast and unexamined misgivings. "Just fix this before I have to explain to the Bureau that the convict I'm responsible for needs to be wormed and defleaed."

 

*

 

El was standing over the box, stroking Neal's little kitten belly while he purred.

Peter closed his eyes and tried to go back to thinking of the kitten as just an anonymous, genderless kitten, but it was too late. He opened his eyes again.

El was looking at him with a curious expression on her face. "Honey, what's going on? Why is Neal a kitten?"

Peter felt his jaw drop.

He looked into the box. El had given Neal one of Peter's t-shirts to curl up on and a saucer of cream. Neal looked even more smug than usual, which up until now Peter would have said was physically impossible.

"How did you—?" Peter looked at El with new eyes. "You believe in magic."

She raised her eyebrows. "Of course. Well, only the stuff that's real, naturally."

"Naturally," said Peter, wondering where he'd been when everyone else had got the memo that witchcraft could actually happen.

Neal meowed, apparently annoyed that the locus of attention had drifted, and El reached in and picked him up, cuddling him under her chin. "It's okay, baby," she crooned. "Peter will sort it out, and for now, at least you're still well-dressed."

"Baby?" Peter closed his eyes again. El had gone mad. Or he was going mad. Or both.

"He's a _kitten_," said El defensively, her cheeks turning pink, but she put Neal down on the table.

At which point Satchmo turned up to say hi. Peter tried to reroute him into the kitchen, but Satchmo had already caught Neal's scent and started barking excitedly, his tail rotating like a propeller. Neal fluffed up at once, looking like every tiny nerve was jangling, and the next thing Peter knew, Neal had ricocheted off his shoulder and was clinging to the top of the curtain, while Satchmo tried to alert the entire neighborhood to the presence of a cat in his territory.

"Oh dear," said El. "Down, Satch! Get down! Be quiet!" But he was too excited to listen, and Peter had to forcibly drag him to the yard and shut him out there.

"I know how you feel," Peter told Satchmo, "but trust me, it's easier if we just go along with it."

When he came back inside, El was trying to talk Neal down, with no success.

"I've put Satchmo outside," said Peter, putting his hands on his hips. "It's all safe. You can come down now."

Neal gave him a wide-eyed you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look and wobbled toward the far end of the curtain rail.

Peter sighed. "I can't believe I'm trying to have a reasoned conversation with an animal." He fetched a dining chair and stood on it to try to grab Neal, but Neal stayed elusive until Peter muttered, "Yeah, I get it. I can't catch you like this. You win. Now are you going to stay up there all day, or are you going to come down and let Elizabeth spoil you rotten?"

Neal stared at him silently, considering, then picked his way toward Peter's outstretched hand. Peter tried to ignore the relief he felt when Neal's soft kitten weight settled in his palm, but he couldn't keep from saying quietly, "It's okay. I've got you."

Neal started purring, and Peter stopped breathing, too aware of the fragile little body, how its heart was pattering against its ribs, the way its tail curled neatly around its paws. Their eyes met, and Peter could see Neal in there, panicked and desperate and impossibly trusting. Peter rubbed Neal's head gently, scratching around the ears before he realized what he was doing and stopped at once.

"Here," he said, handing Neal off to El. "You take him. I'm going to—" He broke off, searching for something manly he could do—chop wood or lift heavy boxes, or even shave—before he caught up with himself and recognized how stupid that was. But the protectiveness, the unexpected tenderness that Neal routinely brought out him was too much to handle when Neal was like this, helpless and so damned cute. Peter couldn't keep a lid on it.

"I'm going into the office," he said, abruptly.

"Now?" El watched him put the chair back at the table. "You have a case—you _seriously_ have a case that's more urgent than looking after Neal right now? Can't you see he's upset?"

"What I can see is that he's sitting on your breasts," said Peter, stealing a quick glance in her direction.

"I think my virtue is safe," said El.

"I—" Peter shrugged into his jacket. "There's a Glaswegian printer who—" He dug in his pockets, but he couldn't find his car keys. "Three hundred thousand dollars, El," he said, pleadingly. "Hughes is on my case, and without Neal to—Dammit, where are my keys?"

"You gave them to that man you brought home with you," El told him, cradling Neal in her arms. He sniffed her hair, and she stroked him absent-mindedly.

Peter sighed and hung his head. "Fine," he said, taking off his jacket again. "I'll stay home and do paperwork while he watches TV."

"That's more like it." El glanced at her watch and yelped. "I've got a meeting in half an hour. Here." She handed Neal over and rushed off to get ready.

 

*

 

Peter didn't do any paperwork. Instead, he spent the rest of the day reading fairytales about transformations, with Neal curled up next to him on the couch, asleep. Peter kept the TV on in the background until the children's programming started to drive him crazy, and then Haversham called from a blocked number. "You have car insurance, right?"

"Oh God," said Peter, lowering his phone so he could stare at it in horror. "What did you do?"

"It's not my fault," said Haversham. "I'm pretty sure Kate must have hexed me too, so I'm selectively blind to fire hydrants. The car still drives okay, and hey, the GPS is pretty cool."

Peter's head started to ache. He listened to Haversham's account of the accident and hung up. "This is all your fault," he told the kitten curled up beside him. "I should have left you in jail."

Neal stretched all four legs out and blinked at him sleepily, and Peter pointed a finger at him. "Don't even try it."

Neal sat up, radiating innocence and hurt feelings for about three seconds, and then ruined the effect by scratching energetically at his collar.

"Don't try that either! Man or beast, you're keeping that thing on," said Peter. "I'm not scouring New York City for a fugitive kitten."

Neal put his tiny nose in the air, then curled up again and went right back to sleep. Peter called the insurance company, remembering too late that he didn't know Haversham's real name, let alone any contact details. After ten minutes of arguing with the call center rep, he threw up his hands in exasperation and said, "Forget it. I'll pay for it."

Even then, they wanted to deduct his no claims bonus. Peter hung up, making a mental note to set El on them. She had a way with stubborn bureaucrats, honed through ten years of marriage to one.

 

*

 

Haversham didn't come back and didn't call, so Peter and El and Neal all sat down to dinner together—Neal on the table with a saucer of Spaghetti Bolognese—and Peter spent most of the meal declaring that he was going to call the NYPD and report his car stolen, or send Cruz and Jones to find Haversham and arrest him, or hold Neal hostage if Haversham didn't return the car. El exchanged glances with Neal and patiently talked Peter down ("These things take time, honey! I'm sure he'll be here by morning."), over and over, until Peter saw Neal's expression, realized he was ruining the meal by complaining and asked El her how her day had been.

 

*

 

Peter woke up in the middle of the night to a small raspy tongue licking his ear.

El had left Neal shut in the guest room where he'd be safe from Satchmo. She'd given him food and water and a litter tray. But Neal was an escapologist, so of course he'd ended up on Peter's pillow, licking his ear at 2:39am. Of course he had.

Peter sighed, gathered his sleep-scattered wits and picked Neal up by the scruff of his neck. He took a moment to be glad he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, then he carried Neal downstairs and set him on the table. He quickly herded Satchmo into the laundry room and closed the door before he could start barking again.

Peter came back and regarded Neal blearily. "What is it?"

Neal washed his face.

"Oh, right. You spent the entire day catnapping in front of the soap operas and now you can't sleep." Peter rubbed his face. "You know, this one-sided conversation thing is getting pretty old."

Neal looked up mid-lick, and Peter would've sworn he could see the spark of an idea flare in those blue kitten eyes. The next thing he knew, Neal was scratching at the front of El's laptop, where she'd pushed it aside.

Peter obediently opened the laptop, switched it on and opened a Word document. "You're going to type? This I have to see."

Neal ignored him and carefully picked out: _abny wor d fr moz_

Peter ignored the name slip. "Other than the ominous call about my car insurance? No. So tell me, how did this even happen? I mean, Haversham was kidding about Kate being a witch, right?"

Neal tapped the keys with fierce concentration. Peter briefly wished he had a video camera: no one would ever believe this, not in a million years.

On the other hand, Neal was typing complete gibberish, so maybe it wasn't as amazing as it had first appeared.

"TAMTIHAEHTADOIYP," Peter read out, letter by letter. "Is that supposed to mean something? Is it a DNA sequence?"

Neal gave him an incredulous look, pressed his paw on the Enter key, and then typed _more things horatio_.

Peter read the letters out again, and then twigged. "Great. It's quarter to three and a kitten is quoting Shakespeare at me. That's exactly what I need."

Neal licked his paws and refused to look at him, and Peter sighed again. He knew he should be supportive and sympathetic, or at least feel more urgency about turning Neal back into a human, but it was the middle of the goddamned night and Haversham had seemed pretty confident he could find an antidote. It was just a matter of time. And all Peter really felt right now was a deep and sincere desire to be in bed, asleep next to his wife. He'd even let Neal sleep on their bed with them, if that was what it would take.

He opened his mouth to suggest it, but Neal was engrossed in his typing again: _kiss me_

"What?" All of a sudden, Peter was wide awake. "You want me to—?! Why?"

_cure_

"Okay, that makes sense." Kisses had been a recurring theme in the fairytales Peter had read, but they were usually bestowed by princesses. "Don't you need royalty for that to work?"

Neal typed for a lot longer this time, while Peter gazed into the middle distance, swallowed around the nervous lump in his throat and thought about kissing Neal. It wasn't the first time he'd thought about kissing Neal by a long shot, but it was the first time he'd considered doing it for real, and it was definitely the first time the Neal in the equation had been small and furry with a tail.

Neal meowed, and Peter looked down at the screen.

_royals owned subjects  
you own me_

Those words. Peter could hear himself saying them on June's patio after that first case. Now they were coming back to haunt him. "Traditionally, it was a kiss from someone of the opposite sex," said Peter, his voice strained.

Neal blinked at him.

Peter caved. He told himself that his resistance was low because he was tired, but the truth was he simply couldn't resist Neal's pleading eyes. Those eyes had got Neal out of prison, and they were going to get him what he wanted now, too. Peter cupped his hands so Neal could step into the curve of his palms, and Peter brought him up so they were eye to eye.

"You asked for it," said Peter, hoping like hell that the spell wouldn't work the other way around and turn Peter into a kitten, too. He pursed his lips and carefully kissed Neal's forehead.

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then there was a whoosh that was half sound and half electricity.

A split second after that, Peter was kissing Neal on the mouth. Real Neal. Human, life-sized Neal. Neal who wasn't pulling away, who was shaking a little and breathing through his nose, and letting Peter kiss him.

Peter stepped back and folded his arms. "You're back."

"Looks like it," said Neal. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a midnight blue t-shirt, and his hair was in utter disarray, but he was Neal, safe and sound and devastatingly attractive.

"Are you okay? What was it like?" asked Peter, to change the subject from the clamor in his head.

Neal shook his head. "Uncomfortable, frustrating, itchy. And I was sleepy most of the time. I'm fine."

Peter nodded, closed the Word document without saving and powered down El's laptop. "Don't ever breathe a word of this to anyone."

"Don't worry," said Neal, quickly. "Honestly, Peter, I'm just grateful to be back."

Peter nodded, then led the way into the kitchen and put two mugs on the counter for hot chocolate. "So, you talked to Kate."

Neal leaned against the counter next to him, fiddling with a plastic takeout fork. "It's over."

"I've heard that before," said Peter, glancing at him without meeting his eyes.

Neal just shrugged, and Peter gave up on the hot chocolate, stopped fussing around and yawned. "Come on. It's too late to go home. You can take the guest room."

They turned off the lights and went upstairs. Outside the guest room, there was an awkward pause.

"Thanks, man," said Neal earnestly. "Really."

Peter pressed his lips together, shook his head, and then hauled Neal into a quick, chaste, welcome-back hug.

 

*

 

Haversham turned up at six-thirty the next morning, hammering on the door so that Peter, El and Neal all went to answer it at the same time, El exclaiming that Neal was okay, and giving him a quick hug even though she was still in her pajamas and robe.

Haversham came in with a crumpled brown paper bag, which he flourished triumphantly. "I got the cure," he said. Then his gaze fell on Neal, and he shoved the bag into his pocket. "Which you don't need because you're already cured."

"Thanks, Moz," said Neal, apparently hell bent on leaving Peter without even the flimsiest shred of plausible deniability about Haversham's name.

"How'd you do it?" Haversham asked.

"Yeah," said El. "How did you do it?"

Neal shook his head. "I just woke up like this," he said. "Maybe it was only a twenty-four hour hex."

"They can have time limits?" asked Peter, and caught some silent complicated byplay between Neal and Haversham. Peter shook his head—some things hadn't changed, anyway. "I can see I'm going to have to study up on this stuff."

"Time limits are extremely tricky." Haversham frowned. "I'm impressed Kate's so advanced—she was never very good at precision."

"Whatever," said Neal hastily. "I'm sure Elizabeth and Peter don't want to hear the boring details."

"Of course." Haversham bundled Neal toward the door. "Come on, I'll drop you back at June's so you can change before work." They were gone in the blink of an eye, well before Peter realized that Haversham was still driving his car.

"I'll kill him," said Peter, but was unable to summon much heat. He was pretty sure the car would be waiting for him on Riverside Drive. Right now, he needed breakfast and coffee. Mostly coffee.

He followed El into the dining room. On the table next to the laptop was a small black and white origami kitten, with an X for a mouth. "Aww, look," said El.

"I'm looking," said Peter, pouring himself a big mug of coffee.

 

*

 

El checked her email over breakfast, while Peter read the headlines and the editorial in the _Times_.

"So," said El, glancing up from her screen, "you kissed him better."

Peter could feel the guilty expression coming and was powerless to stop it. "It was his idea."

"I can see that," she said, looking back at her laptop. "He seduced you with Shakespeare, Horatio."

"How do you know that?" said Peter. "I deleted the file."

El shook her head gently. "Word has an autosave function, honey. You know that. And there was fur on my keyboard. But you can stop feeling guilty—I tried the kissing cure too. I wonder why it worked for you."

Peter leaned back, glad she was opting for an abstract theoretical discussion and not a did-you-like-it? one. "Neal thinks it's about ownership. Royalty used to effectively own their subjects, and certainly the animals on their land. And I own Neal for the next four years."

"I guess that makes sense," said El, thoughtfully. She tucked a stray curl of hair into her ponytail. "Though, you know, in those old fairytales, I always thought it was more about fate and true love than about pulling rank."

Peter blinked. Apparently all conversational options, even the seemingly innocuous ones, led to Rome. Or, to be more accurate, led to Neal. And of course El was right, even if Peter wasn't willing to admit it out loud. "Your point?"

He couldn't help it if he sounded a little defensive.

El closed her laptop and pushed it aside, took a bite of toast and smiled innocently at Peter as she chewed it. "My point is maybe you should invite him over for dinner, now he's not a kitten anymore, and we can take it from there."

It was pretty clear she wasn't mad. She looked amused and maybe even a little hopeful. Peter relaxed and smiled back at her.

"Maybe I should," he agreed. He went upstairs to change, and the scattering of short black strands of fur on his pillow made his smile widen into a sheepish grin that glowed right through him.

 

END


End file.
